The effectiveness of Bayraktar tb2 drones in Karabakh war

[merzifonlu]

We are "Good Cop". Everyone else "Bad Cop" LOL

But, Cop is cop.

 

[JamD]

If I am not mistaking. The engagement range of TB2 is about 15-20Km? Why 40Km then?

I didn't want to spec out a hypothetical system that can just neutralize TB2s current capabilities. There will be improvements, there will be other drones. I was thinking more in terms of a air defense capability gap rather than anti TB2 system.

We're restricting ourselves to TB2 class drones. The answer is no. They can't track up to 40 km away. Closer to 25 km. The MAM-L can hit 15 km away according to its brochures. I was using the 40 km number as a slightly future-proof engagement radius. You want to prevent tracking at 25 km. You probably want to knock out threats at 30 km. No MANPAD can do that.

(EDIT: The laser designator in the ) EOTS has max range 25 km (https://www.aselsan.com.tr/en/capab...onnaissance-surveillance-and-targeting-system)

MAM-L has a max range of 15 km (https://www.roketsan.com.tr/uploads/docs/kataloglar/ENG/1628389063_mam-l-en.pdf)

 

[Oublious]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1498692841526251526

 

[Oublious]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1498745704566730765

 

[dBSPL]

Some of US congressmen that concerned about Turkey's supply of UAV technology to Ukraine:
(All of them are busy to Anti-Russia populism over Ukraine these days)

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499236216063021060

 

[dBSPL]

According to these type news, the USA could want drones for Ukraine.

Republican Sen. Rob Portman on the Ukraine crisis, Biden's State of the Union address

A day after his State of the Union address and amid a looming Ukraine crisis, President Biden is now seeking momentum for his agenda at home. Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the co-chair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus, joins Judy Woodruff to...

www.pbs.org

Again, our drones are probably not appropriate, because it requires months, if not years of training. But there are other drones that are on the market where the United States could help with regard to, again, purchasing those, in essence, or compensating countries like Turkey to provide that capability.

 

[Paul2]

But infrared red search systems has less range right ? So you need a lot of drones or you need own drones operational 24/7 hours over your own troops.

Baruktar doesn't have a jet engine, and is too slow to be affected by aerodynamic heating.

 

[Ali_Baba]

Some of US congressmen that concerned about Turkey's supply of UAV technology to Ukraine:
(All of them are busy to Anti-Russia populism over Ukraine these days)

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499236216063021060

They are all hired hacks of the american defence industry who wanted sales for american industries - Turkey has the lead right now with a combat proven platform that seems to work!!!

 

[Foinikas]

They are all hired hacks of the american defence industry who wanted sales for american industries - Turkey has the lead right now with a combat proven platform that seems to work!!!

No,three are American Greeks. From the names at least.

Did you notice that Al Green signs with green pen?

 

[Dai Toruko]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1500749586499088384

https://twitter.com/x/status/1500732268016553993

 

[Oldman1]

Turkey needs to deliver a hundred of them, like within a week.

 

[sparten]

This might not be a bad idea. Didn't the Iranians mount manpads on drones? Something like that might work if its finessed a bit.

We also tried. Not a very good solution.

 

[dBSPL]

TB2 enrages Russia and reiterates its value to Ukraine​

7th March 2022 - 13:28 GMT | by Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo in Milan

One of the more spectacular TB2 successes disclosed by the Ukrainians was this attack on a Russian fuel train. (Photo: Ukrainian MoD)
Could the Ukraine-Russia war be changing the once-held belief that TB2 strike UAVs are only effective in combat against adversaries with minimal air defence capabilities?


The apparently successful employment of Bayraktar TB2s by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against Russian ground targets — and the evident failure of the Russian Aerospace Forces or SOF to destroy the Turkish-made aircraft — builds on the significant successes the MALE UCAVs had against far less sophisticated militaries in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Ukrainian military has been careful to maintain operational security around its use of TB2s by leaking on social media only a few examples of successful strikes since the Russian invasion began on 24 February.

TB2s had destroyed or neutralised the following targets by 7 March, according to visually verified data collected by OSINT analyst Oryx: one AFV, five towed artillery pieces, five SAM systems, one communications station, two logistics trains and 20 trucks or jeeps.
One major difference is observable when comparing TB2 strikes in Ukraine with its previous missions, said defence technology consultant and author David Hambling.

‘They appear to have been carried out on undemanding targets — either stationary or slow-moving vehicles [specifically trucks and light armoured vehicles] — with drivers unaware of the threat where no great or improved capability is required to hit and destroy them,’ he said.

Shoulder-launched rockets and ATGMs appear to have been successful in destroying or damaging Russian heavy armour (Oryx figures show that 131 MBTs had been lost by 7 March), so arguably there is no need to use TB2s to prioritise these targets yet.

The Russian military has had years to practice its tactics and CONOPS, as well as real-world battle experience in Georgia, Syria and eastern Ukraine in recent years. Russia also possesses advanced air defence systems, EW and jamming capabilities, so its failure to destroy Ukraine’s TB2s is just as puzzling to Western experts as other Russian tactical and strategic shortcomings.

Although it remains too early to draw definitive conclusions, some key facts of the war so far can explain how the TB2s have been able to destroy Russian convoys.

Some Russian SAM equipment (such as this 9A310M1 transporter-erector-launcher for the Buk-M1-2) has been targeted by TB2s. (Photo: Ukrainian MoD)

One of the more obvious facts is that Russia has still not been able to establish air superiority over Ukraine, 12 days into its invasion. Had the Russian military airspace dominance early in the conflict, the TB2s would (in theory) not have been able to fly as freely, partly because it lacks air-to-air armaments.

In addition, online satellite images show that Russian efforts to destroy airfields and runways have been largely inaccurate.

Another reason why TB2s have been able to hit targets with its laser-guided MAM-L missiles is that many Russian vehicle convoys have been deployed far beyond their air defence umbrella — and there is anecdotal evidence that some SAM batteries are inactive because they are entangled in kilometres-long military traffic jams.

Lacking an effective overwatch to protect against attack from the air, these convoys are vulnerable to aerial attack, and Ukraine has exploited this with their TB2s.

Speaking publicly before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war on Ukraine, the head of Ukrainian Air Force military UAV programmes revealed that several officers had spent three months in 2019 receiving TB2 training at a facility in western Turkey owned by Baykar Marina, which manufactures the UCAV.

At that time, sources believe that Ukraine was operating 20 TB2s with four more on order. Since then, on 2 March the Ukrainian MoD revealed more ‘combat-ready’ TB2s had been delivered (open-source flight tracking websites showed multiple Turkish military transport flights to Poland over the preceding days).

This turn of events could perhaps have been anticipated. Turkey’s recent shift towards Ukraine is telling, especially after Ankara on 27 February used its powers under the Montreux Convention to cut off warship access to the Black Sea by blocking passage through the Bosphorous and Dardanelles.

TB2 enrages Russia and reiterates its value to Ukraine | Shephard

Could the Ukraine-Russia war be changing the once-held belief that TB2 strike UAVs are only effective in combat against adversaries with minimal air defence capabilities?

www.shephardmedia.com

 

[dBSPL]

Over Ukraine, Lumbering Turkish-Made Drones Are an Ominous Sign for Russia​

March 11, 2022, 12:22 p.m. ETMarch 11, 2022
March 11, 2022
Dave Philipps and Eric Schmitt

Bayraktar TB2 drones are assembled in Turkey, but rely extensively on electronics made in the United States and Canada.Credit...Birol Bebek/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ukraine’s most sophisticated attack drone is about as stealthy as a crop duster: slow, low-flying and completely defenseless. So when the Russian invasion began, many experts expected the few drones that the Ukrainian forces managed to get off the ground would be shot down in hours.
But more than two weeks into the conflict, Ukraine’s drones — Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 models that buzz along at about half the speed of a Cessna — are not only still flying, they also shoot guided missiles at Russian missile launchers, tanks and supply trains, according to Pentagon officials.
The drones have become a sort of lumbering canary in the war’s coal mine, a sign of the astonishing resiliency of the Ukrainian defense forces and the larger problems that the Russians have encountered.
“The performance of the Russian military has been shocking,” said David A. Deptula, a retired three-star Air Force general who planned the U.S. air campaigns in Afghanistan in 2001 and the Persian Gulf in 1991. “Their failure to secure air superiority has been reflected by their slow and ponderous actions on the ground. Conversely, the Ukrainian air force performing better than expected has been a big boost to the morale of the entire country.”

The people of Ukraine are singing songs about the Bayraktar drone and repeatedly posting online footage of destroyed Russian armor. They have given the name Bayraktar to a lemur born last week at the zoo in Kyiv, the capital.
A senior Pentagon official confirmed that Ukrainian forces had successfully used armed Bayraktars to carry out several attacks on the huge Russian military convoy that has been making its way toward Kyiv. The drones have also been used for reconnaissance, hunting for targets for Ukrainian ground troops. The Pentagon official said he could not confirm the authenticity of videos posted online that purported to show Bayraktar airstrikes.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Bayraktar TB2s were already punching above their weight. The drones, with a 39-foot wingspan, are assembled in Turkey but rely extensively on electronics made in the United States and Canada. A growing number of countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe have bought them because, at about $2 million apiece, they are much cheaper than manned combat aircraft.
In recent years, TB2s have been used to attack targets in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh — each time against opponents armed with Russian-made tanks and antiaircraft systems, and each time landing devastating blows on enemy ground forces.
But military planners and civilian experts cautioned that the drones — which have no self-defense systems, are easily spotted by radar and cruise at only about 80 miles an hour — would be sitting ducks for Russia’s many-layered air defense system. Russian forces have long-range cruise missiles that can destroy the drones on the ground, short-range missile systems that can easily knock them out of the air, and electronic jammers that can block the drones’ communications, leaving them to drop lifeless from the sky.

​

“Even with the drones’ record of success, everyone expected that, once they really faced the full gamut of Russian defenses, they would stand no chance,” said Lauren Kahn, who studies drone warfare at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. Their survival and continued use “is really raising questions about the Russians’ capabilities,” she said.
Pentagon officials remain puzzled by the Russians’ failure to dominate the skies over Ukraine, at least so far. Moscow built up sophisticated missile defenses and air power on Ukraine’s borders, but it has not been using them effectively to complement its ground forces, U.S. officials and analysts said. And Ukrainian air defenses have been surprisingly effective at downing Russian aircraft.
“We aren’t seeing the level of integration between air and ground operations that you would expect to see,” John F. Kirby, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said on Monday. “Not everything they’re doing on the ground is fully being supported by what they’re doing in the air. There does seem to be some disconnect there.”

Residents of Mykolaiv, Ukraine, worked to repair a captured Russian tank on Sunday.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Ukraine’s success at keeping Russia from dominating its airspace not only allows the country to fly its drones, it also limits Russia’s ability to send drones to hunt for the small teams of Ukrainian ground troops who have used shoulder-fired missiles and other weapons to knock out hundreds of Russian vehicles.
“It is so perplexing, and no one is quite sure what went wrong,” said Samuel Bendett, an expert on the Russian military at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based research group. “Russia has a large number of drones, and the assumption was they would be using them for strikes,” he said. “That assumption has been completely undone.”
The Russian forces seemed to be using drones very little so far, Mr. Bendett said, perhaps because they are afraid the drones will be shot down with Ukraine’s air space still contested.

Without air superiority, the Russian offensive has been bogged down, claiming little new territory in recent days while losses mount. The Pentagon estimated on Wednesday that 5,000 to 6,000 Russian troops had been killed, and observers said the number of tanks, missile launchers and trucks that Russia had lost ran into the hundreds.

Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to Know​

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Card 1 of 4
On the ground. Russian forces, battered by the local resistance, have stepped up their bombardment across Ukraine. In Kyiv, artillery battles in the suburbs remained intense, though the Russian advance toward the capital seemed to be on pause.
Punishing measures. President Biden and other Western leaders moved to further isolate Russia from the global trading system, saying they would strip the country of normal trade relations and take other steps to sever its links to the world economy.
Iran nuclear deal. A European Union official said that talks on reviving the 2015 deal were put on pause following the invasion. Russia, a signatory to the accord, has tried to use final approval of the deal as leverage to soften sanctions imposed because of the war.
The coronavirus threat. With millions of Ukrainians on the move fleeing the invasion, health systems disrupted, and testing and vaccination programs suspended in many places, health officials warned that conditions could fuel a new Covid surge across Ukraine.

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At the start of the war, Ukraine had five to 20 Bayraktar TB2s in service. Russia claims to have shot down several of them, and it is unclear how many remain. Still, Ukraine continues to release video images that appear to show the drones destroying Russian vehicles.
Air superiority is seen as a critical first step in modern warfare, and armed forces spend a great deal of time and money trying to ensure that they can quickly dominate the skies when fighting starts. Strategists studying Russia assumed that it would immediately use missile strikes to destroy Ukraine’s air force and surface-to-air missile batteries before they could be used, and then move in scores of fighter jets, radar jammers and missile trucks to take control of Ukraine’s air space. With air superiority established, Russia could freely use its fighters, bombers and drones to annihilate the Ukrainian military.
That has not happened.

In the first days of the invasion, the Russian military appeared to hold back much of its air power, perhaps assuming that the Ukrainian military would not put up much of a fight. Instead, Russian forces met stiff resistance; when they tried to move in mobile missile launchers and electronic warfare vehicles to control the airspace, the convoys were ambushed by Ukrainians before they could reach the fight.
“It’s certainly not the way we would prosecute an air campaign,” said Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at C.N.A., a defense research institute in Arlington, Va.

“But then again, this war didn’t start the way the Russian military organizes and trains to fight, either,” he said. “It was a bungled regime-change operation that became a war they didn’t really plan for.”
But lack of a quick victory for Russia did not mean victory for Ukraine, Mr. Kofman added, noting that Ukraine continues to lose aircraft to Russian missiles, and that it was not possible to glean the true state of the air war from official statements and news reports alone.

Paradoxically, experts say, Ukraine’s early success in the skies may only prolong the war and increase the destruction, as the much larger Russian military appears to be shifting from precision strikes to widespread shelling and bombing of civilian neighborhoods.
Russia is believed to still have forces in reserve that it could use to try to establish the air superiority that it fumbled at the start. Defense officials say few Ukrainian aircraft are now flying, and they must pick their targets carefully to avoid areas where strong Russian defenses might shoot them down.

For the time being, Ukraine’s drones are still flying, U.S. defense officials say. And on Thursday, video footage appeared on social media claiming that one of the Bayraktar drones had destroyed a Russian mobile missile launcher — exactly the kind of expensive, sophisticated weapon system that Russia fielded to wipe out the inexpensive drones that had destroyed it instead.

Over Ukraine, Lumbering Turkish-Made Drones Are an Ominous Sign for Russia (Published 2022)

The Bayraktar TB2 has become a rallying symbol for Ukrainians, who are singing songs about them and posting videos of their success.

www.nytimes.com

 

[dBSPL]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1334815386114482176